In the best way possible, Mystery Booster 2 has surprised us. Prior to its launch, this set was expected to be as rare as gold dust, and just as expensive. Thankfully, that hasn’t been the case, as the product’s sale has been surprisingly uneventful.
Initially released on August 19th, Mystery Booster 2 has been available for almost an entire week now. This surprisingly long-lasted Secret Lair is starting to come to an end, however. Late Sunday night, the Festival in a Box, containing Mystery Booster 2, officially sold out in one region. This may be a sign of what’s to come sooner rather than later.
The Beginning of the End
As mentioned mere moments ago, Festival in a Box, and by extension Mystery Booster 2, is no longer available in Europe. For now, this is the only region that the Festival in a Box has sold out in. This has been a long time coming considering the value that this limited-run product offered.
Ahead of its release, it seemed you literally couldn’t go wrong buying the Festival in a Box. By our math, the products inside meant the box of Mystery Booster 2 was essentially completely free! Despite this, the coveted Festival in a Box still took its sweet time selling out. Considering how the sale started, this is a very welcome relief.
At first, the launch of Mystery Booster 2 was exhilarating thanks to exceptionally long queue times. The moment the Secret Lair dropped, players were greeted with hour-long checkout queues, furthering supply concerns. Thankfully, this initial spike faded rather quickly, and those in the queues were able to place their order with few problems.
Overall, it’s hard to say the Festival in a Box sale has been anything but a success. It didn’t sell out immediately, yet it’s clearly proven to be a popular product all the same. For both Wizards and MTG players, this is a win. To make matters even better, the Festival in a Box is technically still available!
Location Location Allocation
As mentioned, Festival in a Box hasn’t completely sold out around the world just yet. The product is still available for $249.99 in the United States and the United Kingdom. Ultimately, this makes a lot of sense due to the all-important factor of location-based allocation.
While Magic: The Gathering is played all over the world, it’s undeniably more popular in specific regions. North America and Japan, in particular, are the first and second most popular places for playing Magic globally. Due to this, Wizards makes sure that more product is allocated for and printed in these regions.
On the Secret Lair website, the North American region ships to both America and Japan. In theory, this means product allocation should be significantly higher to compensate for the increased player base. Admittedly, it’s unclear how much this happens for more normal Secret Lair drops given the speed they sell out.
Regardless of what’s happened in the past, it seems Wizards significantly upped the print run for Festival in a Box. This may have been done to sate the increased demand following the reveal that Mystery Booster 2 won’t have a retail release. Alternatively, this may have been Wizards of the Coast’s plan all along.
Whatever happened, the results are the same as Festival in a Box is still available in the North American region. How long this will last, however, remains to be seen. Now that Mystery Booster 2 has begun to sell out, the remaining supply may be snapped up fast. This relies on there being little supply left, however, and there’s no concrete information on that.
Far From Perfect
Considering how worried we, and many MTG players, were before release, Festival in a Box has definitely gone better than expected. That being said, this product, and by extension, Mystery Booster 2, isn’t perfect. After all, Mystery Booster 2 still doesn’t have a retail release planned which makes playing it incredibly difficult.
As much as it contains a lot of value, $249.99 is not a small amount of money to spend. Even if recouping this cost is possible, having that much tied up for over a month isn’t tenable for many. In comparison, a $30-40 Draft at a local game store is a much more reasonable proposition.
Ultimately, while its distribution is by no means ideal, Wizards hasn’t really dropped the ball. Mystery Booster 2 was never intended to be a retail product, as it came from the convention team’s budget. Due to this, we can only really be thankful that the Festival in a Box has been available for so long.
Thankfully, the Festival in a Box shouldn’t be the end of Mystery Booster 2. At the very least, this set is expected to appear, and be playable at, MagicCon events in the future. On top of this, it may even be included in the 2025 Festival in a Box. Whether or not this will happen, however, is unconfirmed.
At the end of the day, while Festival in a Box has some room for improvement, it’s hardly been terrible. It would be a surprisingly welcome blessing if all Secret Lair drops were available for a week at least. Given the demand for the upcoming 50th Anniversary Dungeons and Dragons Secret Lairs, we may be back to normal very soon…
Read More: MTG Duskmourn Teaser Highlights Unusual Sequel to Iconic Banned Card
